


i'm talking in circles again

by nonbinary_distortion



Series: wonderful [2]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Gerry is a bit of an empath, Michael needs a sweet goth boi in its life, Nonbinary Character, Other, it/its pronouns are good, it/its pronouns for michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:01:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25126648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinary_distortion/pseuds/nonbinary_distortion
Summary: Michael and Gerry talk after their initial hook up, conversation is hard but Gerry is great at feeling out and respecting boundaries.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley, Gerard Keay/Michael | The Distortion
Series: wonderful [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1820119
Comments: 13
Kudos: 157





	i'm talking in circles again

**Author's Note:**

> Wonderful by Lady Gaga is such a Distortion song, so that's where all the titles come from :)

Gerry was sitting on his sofa and topping off his Zippo with lighter fluid when Michael entered his flat. He wasn't surprised, but he did scoot over to the end to make room. He had a cigarette between his lips as he worked, which he ground into the ashtray on the coffee table as he finally looked up at Michael.

"You don't want to sit down?"

Michael eyed the extra room on the couch, then perched itself on the edge of the coffee table, its long legs splayed out in front of it. There shouldn't have been enough room there for Michael to fully stretch out, but it somehow managed it anyway.

"Are you leaving again, soon?" Michael asked, and Gerry was taken aback by the directness of the question.

"Maybe. Depends on the intel we get." 

Michael's hands were gripping the edge of the table. Not that Gerry cared if it scratched it up. It was secondhand, and he'd done plenty of damage himself, dropping cigarette ashes carelessly, leaving beer bottles to press their rings into the wood when he inevitably passed out on the sofa instead of dragging himself to his bedroom. Coasters were something that happened to other people, people who planned on a future where the condition of furniture mattered.

Gerry flicked his lighter to test it, then lit another cigarette. 

"You're welcome to sit next to me, Michael," he said, and winked when it looked at him.

"I might shred your sofa to pieces."

"Got this couch from one of Gertrude's old storage units. I really don't care."

"I might shred you to pieces."

Gerry blinked at it. He couldn't say he was expecting Michael to be less sharp since they'd hooked up, but Michael was being downright defensive.

He blew a smoke ring across the table, and Michael sliced through it with a finger, as if in demonstration.

It certainly seemed to be in a mood.

The air around them began to crackle like pop rocks, and Michael had turned away from him, its long curls obscuring any expression it might be wearing.

"The Lightless Flame is gaining traction once again," Michael said in a rush, the vowels in its words crashing together in discord.

That gave Gerry serious pause. There had been rumors, of course, but nothing to prove the Desolation was organizing again. They never fully disbanded, either. There were always a few loyal followers here and there, like embers that refused to die.

"It's always something," he said. He wasn't sure if he should be happy about the heads up or not, but he'd talk to Gertrude about it in the morning.

Michael shifted its curls away from its face, which had been fairly steady up until this point, but now slid into an unhappy collage.

"You cannot fight them with fire," it trilled, staticky and sad.

Gerry ran a hand through his hair, frowning. "I know, I know. My mother taught me more than one trick, you know."

Michael had turned into something that was not unlike a depressed puddle on his floor. 

"Michael, do you--do you think you could pull yourself back together?" Gerry asked, standing up. He hadn’t really meant to mention his mother, but she came up more often than he would like. It’s not like he’d had so many other people in his life. That was the problem--well, one of the problems--with being isolated in his younger years. Sometimes he couldn’t help looking back, and his past was full of her. "I'm gonna go get a drink. I goddamn need one."

In the small kitchen, Gerry didn’t have any whiskey that he could call top shelf, but it didn’t need to be. He took a swig straight from the bottle and sighed. Presently, a long-fingered hand plucked the bottle from his grasp and set it, overly gentle, onto the counter.

“Destruction for the sake of destruction,” Michael murmured, and when Gerry looked at it, its round face was back in one piece, and even the edges had lost their usual fuzziness. The sadness was still there, however. 

"You don't get along with them."

It wasn't clear which of them moved first, but Michael wound up sitting on the kitchen counter, the bottle of whiskey shoved to the side. Its long legs dangled in front of it, and Gerry stepped in between, hesitantly. 

"The marks of the Lightless Flame are harsh, and...and you were so awfully kind. After the last time...you rubbed the ache from my wrists." Michael's cheeks glowed periwinkle, and it gripped the edge of the counter, its knuckles taut.

Gerry thought back to how he'd unwound Michael's hands from their tangled state and carefully massaged them without cutting himself. How Michael had refused to look him in the eye as he'd done so, and how Michael had disappeared through its door shortly after. 

"Why tell me about the Desolation if you don't want me getting involved?" He said, leaning in closer and placing his hands on Michael's hips.

Michael leaned backwards, startled, and smacked the back of its head against the cupboard door. It likely didn't hurt, but Michael's blush flashed a fuchsia checkered pattern against its periwinkle.

"You should not be so kind," Michael said, shaking its head until the tone of its cheeks returned to what passed for its normal state.

"To you, you mean?" 

Michael leaned in closer, to what end Gerry wasn't sure, and then he heard the crash. The bottle of whiskey smashed against the old ceramic tile of his kitchen floor, more glass than liquid, since the bottle had been nearly empty.

Gerry sighed, and turned away, fetching the broom from where it was propped in the corner.

"You didn't have to do that. You could have told me to back off and I would have."

It wasn't even that big of a mess, and it only took Gerry a couple minutes to sweep up the pieces into the dustpan and drop them all into the bin. The floor might be a bit sticky later, but that was a problem for future Gerry.

Currently, Michael was still sitting on the counter, watching him with wide brown eyes. It might have been his imagination, but Michael seemed to be perking up.

Gerry raised a pierced eyebrow in its direction. "Would you like something else to break?"

"And if I would?"

Gerry walked over and opened the cupboard door next to Michael's head, careful not to smack into him with it, and grabbed a wine glass. He handed it over, the thin stem between two of his tattooed fingers. Gerry wasn't really a wine sort of person, but he had a hodgepodge of old glasses from traveling over the years, and as far as he was concerned, Michael could take its pick of any of them. Even the souvenir glass from Italy was up for grabs, if that was what it took to have Michael stop looking at him like he was already lost.

"Do you not care for your belongings?" Michael asked, twirling the glass in its hand. It stretched a long arm over the floor and released the wine glass. Together, they watched it fall, and it seemed the air was thicker, and brighter, until the glass bounced against the floor as if made of rubber, and finally settled, unbroken, against the far wall.

"You're not sending me to my doom by giving me information," Gerry said, handing over another glass, this time an old amber rocks glass. "I'd still be in the same business, with or without your interference.”

Michael frowned, and shoved the glass back inside the cupboard, clicking the door shut.

“Perhaps you should find something else to occupy your time.” Michael’s voice quavered, and it reached out with one knobbly-kneed leg and hooked onto Gerry’s, pulling him back in.

“Oh, sure, because there’s so many opportunities for a bloke my age with no A levels. What would you suggest?”

Michael let its leg drop back down so it was no longer holding Gerry there between its knees. Its hands were back on the counter, gripping it overly tight again, as if anxious about having them unrestrained around him.

“What do I know of that? Michael Shelley only ever had the one job, and I was remade for it.”

Gerry sighed, reaching out and placing a hand over Michael’s. “It’s not like I would take up a regular job, even if I could.”

Michael smiled, and if it hadn’t been so crooked, one might have called it cheeky. “You could work for me.”

“Oh, really?” Gerry moved forward, cautiously, though Michael’s body language was much more open now. He wrapped an arm around its middle, and leaned up on his tiptoes to whisper near its ear. “You want to be my boss, is that it?”

“That is not--” Michael’s voice stuttered, the vowels in its words squirming away. “It is not my intention to be--pushy.”

“I know,” Gerry said into its hair, before kissing right below its ear. “I know, it’s all right. It’s only flirting, yeah?”

“I am not--Michael Shelley was never good at this sort of thing.”

“I can back off again. We don’t have to do anything.”

Michael wrapped its legs around Gerry’s waist, shaking its head. “Don’t stop.”

Gerry found himself cradling Michael’s face in his hands, kissing it deep as Michael pressed their bodies even closer together. 

“Do you want to come into my bedroom?” Gerry asked. He could easily shove his pile of clothes onto the floor with the rest of them, could make room for them both, could press Michael into his mattress and touch everywhere it would allow.

“What sort of invitation is it?” Michael nuzzled into Gerry’s shoulder.

“Hopefully a good one.” Gerry waited for Michael to respond, but there was no answer. “Michael?”

“I would hate to be _careless_ with your expectations,” Michael’s voice cracked in the middle of its sentence like an old floorboard.

“My expectations?”

The air was crackling around them once again, and Gerry thought he could taste Michael’s anxiety. It was a sour sort of feeling on his tongue, like he’d had a minor allergic reaction, although Gerry had no allergies that he knew of.

He did take Michael back to his bedroom in the end, and shoved the clothes on his bed into a heap on the floor. He settled Michael onto his mattress, Michael’s hands cradled to its chest, even though Gerry had assured it that he didn’t care if his blankets got torn.

Gerry scooted in behind where Michael was lying on its side, and held it around the waist.

“Okay?” Gerry whispered.

“I think I remember sleep. I could even close my eyes and pretend, but I do not think I will. The Spiral doesn’t dream, did you know?”

“The last dream I had was about running late to a doctor’s appointment, so I don’t think you’re missing out.”

“How very human of you.” Michael laughed softly, its curls shifting once again. Gerry nudged them out of the way and pressed a kiss to the back of Michael’s neck.

“I still am, despite everything.”

Michael wriggled further back into Gerry’s grip, tangling their legs together. Contentment washed over Gerry, and he could tell it wasn’t only his own.


End file.
